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Papers by macharia munene
The SHAFR Guide Online
This paper examines how pressure groups affected the US government's perception of its role i... more This paper examines how pressure groups affected the US government's perception of its role in Africa in the period from the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 up to World War I. During this period American government officials tended to support and encourage European colonialism in Africa and to avoid interfering with European colonial administration. Pressure groups tried to force the US administration to change its attitude. The pressure from the prohibition movement to ban the exportation of alcohol to Africa was responsible for the participation of the US in two conferences in Brussels (1889, 1899) which aimed at putting a limit on the slave and liquor trade in the colonies. By 1906, the US government had come under heavy pressure to do something about the atrocities carried out in the Congo Free State (present-day Zaire) by King Leopold of Belgium, and President Roosevelt was forced to change his policy towards the Congo. With the outbreak of World War I, President Wilson was similarly forced to change his policy and to take a firm stand against the European acquisition of territories in Afric
Historians.evaluate the past for two reasons; to explain the present and to act as a guide to the... more Historians.evaluate the past for two reasons; to explain the present and to act as a guide to the fut'ure. In Africa, what we are actually living with at present is the continent's misery. Different explanations have been of. fered for this state of affairs. These include divine displeasure, inanimate forces of nature, socio-economic factors such as class conflicts, and leadership. No single factor can explain everything but leadership plays a major role. In Africa, some of the leaders who stand out are Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2011
Recent events, especially those surrounding how Kenya projects itself in the region, have attract... more Recent events, especially those surrounding how Kenya projects itself in the region, have attracted attention that is not necessarily favourable. This calls for a reflection on what
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2010
There is a lot of curiosity on the direction that the relationship between Africa and the United ... more There is a lot of curiosity on the direction that the relationship between Africa and the United States, which has, at times, been hostile and disappointing, amusing and inspirational, will take because of Obama"s unusual background. He is a product, and a beneficiary, of the success of anti-colonial and civil rights struggles in Africa and the United States although he has little first hand knowledge of those struggles either as a victim or a victimizer. With an African father and an American mother, he is the first African-American to become president. Essentially a child of two worlds, he prefers the world of America as opposed to that of Africa. The excitement about Obama in Africa is also partly because he is a big contrast to his predecessor, George W. Bush, with whom he has some things in common. Both appeared to have rebellious streaks, had the best education in elite schools culminating in graduate studies at Harvard whether in business or in law. Both are sharp and determined political calculators with ability to play serious hardball. This might explain why each engaged in some sort of public service with disadvantaged African-Americans before releasing political ambitions in Texas for Bush and Illinois for Obama. Both succeeded with unexpected speed, Bush playing damn and Obama just the opposite. The perceived contrast attracted people to Obama who eventually made him president. While to many Africans, Bush was a source of concern rather than inspiration, Obama was different and was "one of us". While some of the Bush policies appeared designed to victimize and blame Africans for the mess that Americans and their followers in the West had made, there is excitement about Obama and a belief that he would not commit the same blunders. He inspires forces that see in him a man through whom they can push different agenda that may not be in his agenda. To many such forces, Obama is likely to
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2010
The Sahrawi are a hybrid people found in parts of northwest Africa, mostly Western Sahara and the... more The Sahrawi are a hybrid people found in parts of northwest Africa, mostly Western Sahara and they are victims of multiple colonialism. The decision by European powers to include parts of their land in various colonies subjected many Sahrawi to different French and Spanish colonial policies and experiences in Morocco, Algeria, Mauretania and Western Sahara. The Spaniards took control of Western Sahara and when they decided to leave, Morocco, with its irredentist dreams stepped in. Morocco became the new colonial power as it claimed Western Sahara territory as a province. It behaves in the same way as the French did when they claimed that Algeria was a province of France. Morocco exploited the prevailing international climate to advance its colonialistic proclivities at a time when territorial colonialism had become anathema internationally. That climate made the big powers, whether communistic or capitalistic, appear to support Morocco. This way their perceived interests seemed to dictate that they be in good books with Morocco and they thus condoned Morocco's annexationist designs. The fact that Morocco itself used to be colonized by the French and the Spaniards tends to hide the fact that it is a colonial power imposing itself on the Sahrawi. February 27, 1976 they asserted that their territory was the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR, that was a "free, independent, sovereign state ruled by an Arab national democratic system of progressive unionist orientation and of Islamic religion." 1 Some months later, POLISARIO made adjustments to describe the Sahrawi as having "Arab, African, and Islamic identity" that was part of the Third Word in "opposition to imperialism, colonialism, and exploitation." 2 The stress on "Arab national" was a power issue because of the prestige attached to being "Arab", as social status. 3 It was probably a reflection on the lingering caste system of superior and inferior tribes with black Africans considered as the most inferior. 4 Those assuming superiority were shorfa, mainly of Arab descent or ahel mdafa, the warriors. The inferior were znaga, the weak or the conquered, that were forced to pay horma, or tribute, as protection fee. Although with colonization, all Sahrawi became znaga and paid horma to Spaniards, the system remained in the minds. The Sahrawi, culturally different from their immediate neighbours, are a hybrid people. Their music is predominantly African, place names are predominantly Berber, religion is Suni Moslem, and words of daily usage on small items are Spanish. 5 While most groups traced their origins to a founding patriarch or holy man, they all came together in the Ait Arabin or Council of Forty to discuss the fate of their people independently of those governments in Morocco or Mauritania. 6 A nomadic people whose primary loyalty was to the qabila and clan, they engaged in ghazi, or raids, in order to acquire livestock from
African Affairs, 2012
Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011. By Daniel Branch. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2... more Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011. By Daniel Branch. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Pp. xi, 366; map, photographs, bibliography, index. $35.00 cloth.As I sit typing the final words of this review, the constant "pinging" of emails arriving from Nairobi-their contents ranging from friendly exchanges with colleagues, to news bulletins-well represents the state of frenzied excitement and trepidation in Kenya this week. In seven days-on 4 March-Kenyans will visit the ballot boxes to elect a new president, and as in 2007, the election promises to be extraordinarily close. Observers around the world watch-collective breath held-to see whether violence and the resultant displacement of hundreds of thousands of citizens will again be unleashed upon the nation.This morning's press coverage is focused squarely on the fallout from last night's second and final presidential debate. Nation correspondents Alphonce Shiundu and Justus Wanga report that, "Candidates ... asked each other tough questions regarding scandals that rocked governments dating as far back as 20 years ago."1 Shiundu and Wanga's statement is pregnant with meaning for someone who has just finished Daniel Branch's new book. For Branch, a consistent thread of corruption, poor governance, and frequently violence has characterized Kenyan politics stretching back to 1963. And during this period, the perpetrators' identities-the elites of Kenya-have changed little. The author expands: "Kenya's leaders have encouraged political debate to centre on recognition rather than on redistribution.... [They] have encouraged Kenyans to think and act politically in a manner informed first by ethnicity, in order to crush demands for the redistribution of state resources" (p. 16). Demonstrating how little has changed over the past half-century, Branch opens his book with a description of a party hosted by Oginga Odinga, Kenya's future first Vice-President, in June 1963, and ends with one hosted by his son, Raila- currently Prime Minister, for at least another week-in August 2010.Branch has produced nothing less than a masterpiece of political history in this timely work. In fewer than 300 pages of text, he leads the reader through the past fifty years of Kenya's often complex (if not opaque) past, without seeming to force the pace, nor stuff his paragraphs with overwhelming detail. This breadth of approach is rare in writings about independent Kenya: authors like Charles Hornsby, David Throup, and William Ochieng' have addressed relatively thin chronological slices of the period, but their erudite works are unquestionably "academic" in tone, and somewhat inaccessible to those not "in the know."2 (Journalists, too, have written copiously on the black comedy that is Kenyan politics, but their agendas emphasize the here-and-now, and sections of hastily constructed history typically exist only to provide a foil for contemporary events.) Branch's achievement is magnified by the fact that at each and every stage of his narrative, the ordinary Kenyan looms large: the reshufflings of elite power-brokers have always reverberated down to the ever-increasing numbers of watchmen or jua kali (informal) traders trying to get by on minimal funds and maintain a place to call home, amidst government bulldozers, efforts to "redistribute" land, or youthful, "ethnic" militias claiming "tribal" homelands. …
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2018
I would like to raise some issues pertaining to the potential of research as an economic engine. ... more I would like to raise some issues pertaining to the potential of research as an economic engine. These are: The purpose of research; The Place and Status of Researchers and Institutions in Society; The Issue of the Quality of Research as a Security concern at the national and local levels; Individual Obligations and Responsibilities to the State and Society; and the Challenge in Kenyan Research Institutions.
Comments by Prof Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa during Heinrich Boll Foundation, University of Na... more Comments by Prof Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa during Heinrich Boll Foundation, University of Nairobi, and Twaweza Communications Symposium on the launch of Kenya’s 2013 Election: Stakes, Practices and Outcome, on January 21, 2016 at the University of Nairobi.
A Presentation by Prof. Munene Macharia prepared for Academic Staff Union of Universities Confere... more A Presentation by Prof. Munene Macharia prepared for Academic Staff Union of Universities Conference on the Decolonization of Western Sahara Abuja, Nigeria June 2-4, 2015
A Newspaper article by Prof Macharia Munene, Professor of History and International Relations at ... more A Newspaper article by Prof Macharia Munene, Professor of History and International Relations at USIU-A
A newspaper article by Macharia Munene, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, USIU in the Afric... more A newspaper article by Macharia Munene, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, USIU in the African Executive
A Newspaper Article by Prof. Munene Macharia, a professor of History and International Relations ... more A Newspaper Article by Prof. Munene Macharia, a professor of History and International Relations at USIU-Africa
A book chapter by Macharia Munene School of Humanities & Social Sciences in the book Militias, Re... more A book chapter by Macharia Munene School of Humanities & Social Sciences in the book Militias, Rebels and Islamist Militants: Human Insecurity and State Crises in Africa
A book chapter by Munene Macharia School of Humanities and Social Science USIU, in the Book Multi... more A book chapter by Munene Macharia School of Humanities and Social Science USIU, in the Book Multilateralism and International Law with Western Sahara as a Case Study
A Newspaper article in the Daily Nation Newspaper by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of Histor... more A Newspaper article in the Daily Nation Newspaper by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of History and International Relations at USIU-A
A Presentation by Prof. Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa to the United Nations Special Committee on... more A Presentation by Prof. Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa to the United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, June 1, 2016, at holiday Inn & Convention Center, Managua, Nicaragua during the Pacific Regional Seminar on the "Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism: Commitments and actions for decolonization in the Non-Self-Governing Territories". Hosted by the Government of Nicaragua, Managua, Nicaragua, 31 May to 2 June 2016
A Newspaper article by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of History and International Relations ... more A Newspaper article by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of History and International Relations at USIU-Africa
The SHAFR Guide Online
This paper examines how pressure groups affected the US government's perception of its role i... more This paper examines how pressure groups affected the US government's perception of its role in Africa in the period from the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 up to World War I. During this period American government officials tended to support and encourage European colonialism in Africa and to avoid interfering with European colonial administration. Pressure groups tried to force the US administration to change its attitude. The pressure from the prohibition movement to ban the exportation of alcohol to Africa was responsible for the participation of the US in two conferences in Brussels (1889, 1899) which aimed at putting a limit on the slave and liquor trade in the colonies. By 1906, the US government had come under heavy pressure to do something about the atrocities carried out in the Congo Free State (present-day Zaire) by King Leopold of Belgium, and President Roosevelt was forced to change his policy towards the Congo. With the outbreak of World War I, President Wilson was similarly forced to change his policy and to take a firm stand against the European acquisition of territories in Afric
Historians.evaluate the past for two reasons; to explain the present and to act as a guide to the... more Historians.evaluate the past for two reasons; to explain the present and to act as a guide to the fut'ure. In Africa, what we are actually living with at present is the continent's misery. Different explanations have been of. fered for this state of affairs. These include divine displeasure, inanimate forces of nature, socio-economic factors such as class conflicts, and leadership. No single factor can explain everything but leadership plays a major role. In Africa, some of the leaders who stand out are Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2011
Recent events, especially those surrounding how Kenya projects itself in the region, have attract... more Recent events, especially those surrounding how Kenya projects itself in the region, have attracted attention that is not necessarily favourable. This calls for a reflection on what
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2010
There is a lot of curiosity on the direction that the relationship between Africa and the United ... more There is a lot of curiosity on the direction that the relationship between Africa and the United States, which has, at times, been hostile and disappointing, amusing and inspirational, will take because of Obama"s unusual background. He is a product, and a beneficiary, of the success of anti-colonial and civil rights struggles in Africa and the United States although he has little first hand knowledge of those struggles either as a victim or a victimizer. With an African father and an American mother, he is the first African-American to become president. Essentially a child of two worlds, he prefers the world of America as opposed to that of Africa. The excitement about Obama in Africa is also partly because he is a big contrast to his predecessor, George W. Bush, with whom he has some things in common. Both appeared to have rebellious streaks, had the best education in elite schools culminating in graduate studies at Harvard whether in business or in law. Both are sharp and determined political calculators with ability to play serious hardball. This might explain why each engaged in some sort of public service with disadvantaged African-Americans before releasing political ambitions in Texas for Bush and Illinois for Obama. Both succeeded with unexpected speed, Bush playing damn and Obama just the opposite. The perceived contrast attracted people to Obama who eventually made him president. While to many Africans, Bush was a source of concern rather than inspiration, Obama was different and was "one of us". While some of the Bush policies appeared designed to victimize and blame Africans for the mess that Americans and their followers in the West had made, there is excitement about Obama and a belief that he would not commit the same blunders. He inspires forces that see in him a man through whom they can push different agenda that may not be in his agenda. To many such forces, Obama is likely to
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2010
The Sahrawi are a hybrid people found in parts of northwest Africa, mostly Western Sahara and the... more The Sahrawi are a hybrid people found in parts of northwest Africa, mostly Western Sahara and they are victims of multiple colonialism. The decision by European powers to include parts of their land in various colonies subjected many Sahrawi to different French and Spanish colonial policies and experiences in Morocco, Algeria, Mauretania and Western Sahara. The Spaniards took control of Western Sahara and when they decided to leave, Morocco, with its irredentist dreams stepped in. Morocco became the new colonial power as it claimed Western Sahara territory as a province. It behaves in the same way as the French did when they claimed that Algeria was a province of France. Morocco exploited the prevailing international climate to advance its colonialistic proclivities at a time when territorial colonialism had become anathema internationally. That climate made the big powers, whether communistic or capitalistic, appear to support Morocco. This way their perceived interests seemed to dictate that they be in good books with Morocco and they thus condoned Morocco's annexationist designs. The fact that Morocco itself used to be colonized by the French and the Spaniards tends to hide the fact that it is a colonial power imposing itself on the Sahrawi. February 27, 1976 they asserted that their territory was the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR, that was a "free, independent, sovereign state ruled by an Arab national democratic system of progressive unionist orientation and of Islamic religion." 1 Some months later, POLISARIO made adjustments to describe the Sahrawi as having "Arab, African, and Islamic identity" that was part of the Third Word in "opposition to imperialism, colonialism, and exploitation." 2 The stress on "Arab national" was a power issue because of the prestige attached to being "Arab", as social status. 3 It was probably a reflection on the lingering caste system of superior and inferior tribes with black Africans considered as the most inferior. 4 Those assuming superiority were shorfa, mainly of Arab descent or ahel mdafa, the warriors. The inferior were znaga, the weak or the conquered, that were forced to pay horma, or tribute, as protection fee. Although with colonization, all Sahrawi became znaga and paid horma to Spaniards, the system remained in the minds. The Sahrawi, culturally different from their immediate neighbours, are a hybrid people. Their music is predominantly African, place names are predominantly Berber, religion is Suni Moslem, and words of daily usage on small items are Spanish. 5 While most groups traced their origins to a founding patriarch or holy man, they all came together in the Ait Arabin or Council of Forty to discuss the fate of their people independently of those governments in Morocco or Mauritania. 6 A nomadic people whose primary loyalty was to the qabila and clan, they engaged in ghazi, or raids, in order to acquire livestock from
African Affairs, 2012
Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011. By Daniel Branch. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2... more Kenya: Between Hope and Despair, 1963-2011. By Daniel Branch. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. Pp. xi, 366; map, photographs, bibliography, index. $35.00 cloth.As I sit typing the final words of this review, the constant "pinging" of emails arriving from Nairobi-their contents ranging from friendly exchanges with colleagues, to news bulletins-well represents the state of frenzied excitement and trepidation in Kenya this week. In seven days-on 4 March-Kenyans will visit the ballot boxes to elect a new president, and as in 2007, the election promises to be extraordinarily close. Observers around the world watch-collective breath held-to see whether violence and the resultant displacement of hundreds of thousands of citizens will again be unleashed upon the nation.This morning's press coverage is focused squarely on the fallout from last night's second and final presidential debate. Nation correspondents Alphonce Shiundu and Justus Wanga report that, "Candidates ... asked each other tough questions regarding scandals that rocked governments dating as far back as 20 years ago."1 Shiundu and Wanga's statement is pregnant with meaning for someone who has just finished Daniel Branch's new book. For Branch, a consistent thread of corruption, poor governance, and frequently violence has characterized Kenyan politics stretching back to 1963. And during this period, the perpetrators' identities-the elites of Kenya-have changed little. The author expands: "Kenya's leaders have encouraged political debate to centre on recognition rather than on redistribution.... [They] have encouraged Kenyans to think and act politically in a manner informed first by ethnicity, in order to crush demands for the redistribution of state resources" (p. 16). Demonstrating how little has changed over the past half-century, Branch opens his book with a description of a party hosted by Oginga Odinga, Kenya's future first Vice-President, in June 1963, and ends with one hosted by his son, Raila- currently Prime Minister, for at least another week-in August 2010.Branch has produced nothing less than a masterpiece of political history in this timely work. In fewer than 300 pages of text, he leads the reader through the past fifty years of Kenya's often complex (if not opaque) past, without seeming to force the pace, nor stuff his paragraphs with overwhelming detail. This breadth of approach is rare in writings about independent Kenya: authors like Charles Hornsby, David Throup, and William Ochieng' have addressed relatively thin chronological slices of the period, but their erudite works are unquestionably "academic" in tone, and somewhat inaccessible to those not "in the know."2 (Journalists, too, have written copiously on the black comedy that is Kenyan politics, but their agendas emphasize the here-and-now, and sections of hastily constructed history typically exist only to provide a foil for contemporary events.) Branch's achievement is magnified by the fact that at each and every stage of his narrative, the ordinary Kenyan looms large: the reshufflings of elite power-brokers have always reverberated down to the ever-increasing numbers of watchmen or jua kali (informal) traders trying to get by on minimal funds and maintain a place to call home, amidst government bulldozers, efforts to "redistribute" land, or youthful, "ethnic" militias claiming "tribal" homelands. …
Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship in Africa, 2018
I would like to raise some issues pertaining to the potential of research as an economic engine. ... more I would like to raise some issues pertaining to the potential of research as an economic engine. These are: The purpose of research; The Place and Status of Researchers and Institutions in Society; The Issue of the Quality of Research as a Security concern at the national and local levels; Individual Obligations and Responsibilities to the State and Society; and the Challenge in Kenyan Research Institutions.
Comments by Prof Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa during Heinrich Boll Foundation, University of Na... more Comments by Prof Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa during Heinrich Boll Foundation, University of Nairobi, and Twaweza Communications Symposium on the launch of Kenya’s 2013 Election: Stakes, Practices and Outcome, on January 21, 2016 at the University of Nairobi.
A Presentation by Prof. Munene Macharia prepared for Academic Staff Union of Universities Confere... more A Presentation by Prof. Munene Macharia prepared for Academic Staff Union of Universities Conference on the Decolonization of Western Sahara Abuja, Nigeria June 2-4, 2015
A Newspaper article by Prof Macharia Munene, Professor of History and International Relations at ... more A Newspaper article by Prof Macharia Munene, Professor of History and International Relations at USIU-A
A newspaper article by Macharia Munene, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, USIU in the Afric... more A newspaper article by Macharia Munene, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, USIU in the African Executive
A Newspaper Article by Prof. Munene Macharia, a professor of History and International Relations ... more A Newspaper Article by Prof. Munene Macharia, a professor of History and International Relations at USIU-Africa
A book chapter by Macharia Munene School of Humanities & Social Sciences in the book Militias, Re... more A book chapter by Macharia Munene School of Humanities & Social Sciences in the book Militias, Rebels and Islamist Militants: Human Insecurity and State Crises in Africa
A book chapter by Munene Macharia School of Humanities and Social Science USIU, in the Book Multi... more A book chapter by Munene Macharia School of Humanities and Social Science USIU, in the Book Multilateralism and International Law with Western Sahara as a Case Study
A Newspaper article in the Daily Nation Newspaper by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of Histor... more A Newspaper article in the Daily Nation Newspaper by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of History and International Relations at USIU-A
A Presentation by Prof. Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa to the United Nations Special Committee on... more A Presentation by Prof. Macharia Munene of USIU-Africa to the United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, June 1, 2016, at holiday Inn & Convention Center, Managua, Nicaragua during the Pacific Regional Seminar on the "Implementation of the Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism: Commitments and actions for decolonization in the Non-Self-Governing Territories". Hosted by the Government of Nicaragua, Managua, Nicaragua, 31 May to 2 June 2016
A Newspaper article by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of History and International Relations ... more A Newspaper article by Prof. Macharia Munene, a professor of History and International Relations at USIU-Africa